On 6 July 2024, the IPN delegation paid tribute to the soldiers of the Vilnius and Novogródek districts of the Home Army and visited the most important sites commemorating the July 1944 struggle.
The commemorations began in Skorbuciany with a field mass for the intention of soldiers from the Vilnius and Nowogródek districts of the Home Army killed in the battle for Vilnius. Flowers and wreaths were laid in the quarters of the fallen. In Bogusze, wreaths and flowers were laid at the memorial commemorating the arrest of officers of the Vilnius District headquarters of the Home Army by the NKVD.
The culmination of the activities was the conference titled „Before Warsaw there was Vilnius” held at the House of Polish Culture in the Lithuanian capital organized by the IPN. During the event, the IPN President Karol Nawrocki, Ph.D. presented the Bronze Medals Reipublicae Memoriae Meritum to Tomasz Bożerocki, Ilona Ewa Lewandowska and Artur Kołoszewski.
With the Reipublicae Memoriae Meritum Medal, the IPN honours those who work for the lasting commemoration of events and figures from the history of the Polish nation in the years 1917-1990 and support the IPN in its educational, scientific and publishing activities.
The struggle for freedom here in the Vilnius region began much earlier than during the Operation "Gate of Dawn". Let us all be aware that Polish conspirators fought for a Polish Vilnius after 1939, against the wishes of the Soviets, and for a free Poland after 1945, in an epic struggle which from the Vilnius region spread to Podlasie, Pomerania and Lower Silesia, said the IPN president during the award ceremony.
He also drew attention to the tragic aspects of the July 1944 events in Vilnius: Military alliances with the Soviet Union led Poland and the Poles to annihilation. Let this be symbolised not only by the white and red flag on Castle Hill, so quickly pulled down by the Soviets, but also by the death of Aleksander Krzyżanowski 'Wilk' in 1951.
The Operation "Ostra Brama" ["Gate of Dawn"] aimed to retake Vilnius from retreating German troops before Soviet arrival began on 7 July 1944. Despite initial success, the action failed and Polish soldiers faced capture, execution, or imprisonment by the Soviets. The Polish leaders were arrested and many soldiers were forced to join the Red Army or sent to labour camps. Poland had already lost its eastern territories to Stalin at the Tehran Conference, but none of the Polish soldiers fighting in Vilnius knew about it.
Aleksander Krzyżanowski code-named “Wilk” [“Wolf”] was the commander of the Home Army in the Vilnius Region. He was tricked by the Soviets into coming to a fake debriefing and detained on 17 July 1944. He escaped in 1947 but was soon recaptured. He died in prison in 1951.
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On 7 July, the IPN delegation headed by the Institute's President Karol Nawrocki, Ph.D., participated in a Mass for the intention of the fallen soldiers from the Vilnius and Nowogródzki Districts of the Home Army, held at St. Theresa's Church in Vilnius.
A solemn appeal was held at The Mother and the Heart of Son Mausoleum in Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius. This was the closing ceremony of the 80th anniversary of the Operation „Gate of Dawn” celebrations.
If until July 1944 anyone could leave the Soviets a margin of goodwill towards Poland and the Poles, despite the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, despite 17 September 1939 attack and the Katyń Massacre, then after Operation „Gate of Dawn" they could abandon any hope because, for this beautiful act of patriotism, the Soviets rewarded the Poles with repressions, death and prisons, said the IPN President Karol Nawrocki during the ceremony.
The culmination of the solemn celebration of the 80th anniversary of Operation "Gate of Dawn" was the opening of the outdoor exhibition "Before Warsaw was Vilnius. Home Army district "Wiano" in the fight against totalitarianism," prepared by the IPN Branch in Białystok. The exhibition presents on 22 panels the independence efforts of the Vilnius WW2 underground. The first organizations were formed in the Vilnius region in late September 1939. Over time, their independence efforts were channelled into the Vilnius District of the Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army (codenamed "Wiano"). The Vilnius conspirators fought against the Soviets, Germans and several formations collaborating with the occupiers. In the spring of 1944, large swaths of the Vilnius region came under the control of Polish partisan units, and the largest armed action of the Vilnius District of the Home Army was Operation "Gate of Dawn" - an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Vilnius from German hands. The German withdrawal did not end the independence activities of the Vilnius District of the Home Army. The underground fight continued against the Soviets.